Community Credentials - Final Report to eSSIF-lab

Prepared by @Nick_M on behalf of the team:

Dear Regis, Oskar and Rieks,

Thank you for the call earlier today.

On the call I promised to send you some materials we had prepared in advance for the meeting that you might find helpful in your process:

  • Evidence of a demo presented to a customer (or what you intend to present to a prospective customer):

Our existing demo is here eSSIF-Lab BOC1 – Community Credentials by Resonate - YouTube We understood that evidence of progress towards a demo with real customers would be sufficient, but we are happy to commit to provide an end-to-end demo for the end of June. Angus will revert to you on this.

  • Lessons learned:

1. Customer Research Insights

Key Insight 1: Music Scenarios are attractive: b2c before b2b

Key Insight 2: Privacy enables trusted ‘Customisation’

Key Insight 3: The post-covid opportunity for privacy-respecting community is attractive

Key Insight 4: There is potential for partnership with major ethical / charitable brands

Key Insight 5: Keep friction low, use strong credentials only for high value / high risk transactions

2. Realistic Product Development

There are many potential use cases, at scale, in the context of music and co-operative community. Important to focus on a core and get it right. Key Insight: Product development cycle and user expectations must be built for the long haul. There may be many iterations between capability and viability.

3. Tech Readiness

Readiness of the technology. Keep it simple. Even then, much of it is not proven in a production context. Eg wallets need to be well integrated in the UX, not an afterthought / bolt on.

The UX needs to be a much more central concern if you consider that we’re competing against services like Patreon here. Patreon makes it very easy to share exclusive content to proven supporters, even if it doesn’t have all the other benefits of verifiable credentials plus open source software. We need to make it at least 80% as easy, ideally parity or better, for this to be a viable proposition for an artist.

4. Flexibility

We remain wallet / holder / issuer / verifier tech agnostic. As well as VCL infrastructure we will also seek out a fully open-source reference implementation.

In particular we’re interested in open source wallets that can be integrated into other mobile apps.

5. Capability Building

Co-op development on a volunteer basis is hard. Need to ‘seed’ it with professionally managed PM / developers.

6. Skills Availability

VCreds aware / experienced developers and even oauth2 experienced developers are scarce.

7. Funding

Early stage capital remains difficult for co-ops to access. Consequently, projects don’t move as fast as we, or our grantors / supporters might like, but sustainable, ethical capability growth is important.

8. Interoperability

The interoperability jungle remains tough to resolve or second-guess at a global commercial marketplace level. Essif lab architecture is a powerful tool to help understand and map it, and choose the appropriate layer of abstraction for our solution. We will keep a focus on our community and ecosystem and try to solve for real ‘local’ value first. Business and governance before technology.

9. Metadata Standards

DDEX, Schema.org and other music metadata standards and formats within the music industry are a very important choice for us and our position in the independent music industry.

10. Outreach

Do not underestimate the effort needed in outreach to other organisations in the ecosystem and the need to align end to end on values, outcomes, processes and data.

  • What you have achieved in the programme:

  • Created the Community Credentials concept and plugin;

  • Proved there is music and co-operative community enthusiasm for it;

  • Built a network of relationships within and outside the programme (many thanks to ESSIF-Lab!)

We have explored several use cases:

1. Artist Circle

As an artist I want to offer privileged access to a circle of my proven supporters.

Presentation of a credential admits access to a private group and category on Resonate community forum where an artist can maintain a ‘landing page’ and share special content or discuss their work with proven supporters.

Resonate player service issues a VC credential on ‘buy now’ or reaching 9 plays level (you own this track)

Listener stores credential in their wallet and presents it to the verifier service to gain access to the Artist Circle. (For a limited period?)

Artist circle contains links to protected services such as videos or livestreams, or trial tracks. Artist may engage in discussion.

2. Event Access

As an artist I want to be able to offer simple, verifiable ticket access to my event.

An artist or their representative may set up a community forum ‘ticket’ page (Perhaps in their Artists Circle).

Resonate balance ledger and billing service (to be developed) takes payment and issues a ticket credential to a user wallet.

User presents credential to gain access to the ticket page, which is then shown to staff at door of gig, or printed.

Integration with the venue ticketing system is also a possibility - verifier API.

3. Recurring Micropayment Support for Artists or Commissioned work

As a listener I would like to offer regular support to an artist or group of artists and or a specific proposed new work by making regular payments. (More affordable, community-based version of Patreon)

Resonate balance ledger and billing service issues a credential to the listener-contributor on making a payment and artist / proposed musical work allocation.

Listener stores credential in their wallet and presents it to the verifier service to gain access to the Artist Circle,or to other external, third-party ecosystem service, such as redeeming the credential for a physical copy of the work, or merchandise.

4. Co-Creation, Budgeting and Licencing for New Musical Work

As an Artist I want to work with co-creators in the creation of a musical work and to record the cost and future revenue splits and for all involved to receive a verifiable credential for their involvement and contribution, financial or otherwise.

Creators and contributors record their agreed splits and contributions in a suitable co-budgeting app such as Splitwise: https://www.splitwise.com. Agreed split is then exported as a JSON and signed as a VC by parties involved. Split may be part funded by recurring payments under 3 above.

Creators and contributors store their credentials in their wallet and present them to be verified by music services (Resonate and others) in order to claim rights/royalty payments.

5. Venue Performance Rights

As a performance venue I wish to play Resonate tracks in public and settle my rights payments owed to artists for public plays.

Venue signs in to player / forum and plays tracks which are logged (as a playlist?) in a verifiable credential, issued by the Resonate balance ledger and billing service on receipt of royalty payment from venue.

6. Ethical alternative to NFTs

As a graphic artist with content on the player I want to offer listener-viewers the opportunity to contribute to my work.

Note: this is a policy / ethical issue for Resonate. Some artists have suggested that NFT-like certificates could be issued. Others are concerned by the commodification of art that this represents.

On selecting an artwork, the user is offered the opportunity to contribute a set amount of credits for the work and a VC is issued in the name of the artist and the contributing user. The artist may choose to limit the number of credentials on offer.

The credential is kept in the user’s wallet and traded (by listing on a separate marketplace) at the discretion of the artist.

7. Mutual KYC and Membership for Co-operatives

As a supporter of the co-operative movement, I would like it to be easier to join other co-operatives without repeated verification of original identity proofs. As a co-operative we would like to work with other co-operatives under principle 6 to mutualise the cost of KYC.

A co-op in the network, with Discourse and the CC plugin, issues membership credentials using a templated, mutually acceptable membership process.

Members hold and present these credentials to new co-ops within the network, which apply their verification rules before granting access. Partner co-operatives mutualise the KYC process costs through a separate accounting process.

8. ‘Coalition’ / ‘White Label’ Loyalty Schemes for Co-operatives

As a co-operative I would like to participate in a privacy-respecting loyalty scheme that encourages and rewards the consumption of goods and services from other co-operatives.

A co-op operates a loyalty scheme in which members are issued points credentials based on desirable member behaviours and consumption of qualifying goods and services. Participating co-ops issue vouchers of points which provide value in the form of a discount on future sales.

Members present their points credentials in exchange for discount on sales at co-operative ‘checkouts’ processes.

9. Mutual Exchange / Community Inclusion Currency

As a member of a community co-operative I would like to support ‘circular’ mutual value exchange where goods and services are exchanged in a local trading scheme.

Members with appropriate reputation (see processes in # 7) may issue their own ‘promises’ of future value in exchange for future credit that can be spent on other community member-provided goods and services such as food, accommodation, tour transport, technical services / equipment loans, gig setup.

Individual current balances and trading history are held in a credential that may be selectively disclosed to other members prior to transacting an exchange / promise.

Re-issue of credentials and verification of transactions is executed by a (centralised) community accounting component.

10. Mutual Community Investment Trust Shares

As a member and supporter of the co-operative movement I would like to purchase redeemable supporter shares in a mutual fund established to support co-operatives so that I can make an ethical, modest savings investment for my future.

A co-operative savings institution / fund would be created, offering digital savings certificates as a credential in investor wallets.

The collective fund would offer loan / supporter share investments to participating co-operatives.

Even though we have not yet achieved our production implementation, we have generated considerable interest in our ESSIF-Lab Community Credentials work:

Community Credentials Mini Site

https://credentials.resonate.is/ 1

Press Release 1

Resonate – 29 Oct 20

Community Credentials - Resonate

Resonate is creating a Co-operative Privacy and Trust system for digital dignity across communities, working with EU project partners.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ecmr-45OGAnRet0SvI-0fxYYgBBlyYlN/view?usp=sharing

Press Release 2

credentials.resonate.is

Community-Credentials-press-release-2-v-1-1.pdf

328.62 KB

Intro Link: Resonate’s Community Credentials Project Nears Launch – Resonate

Interview with Open Coop

The Open Co-op – 23 Oct 20

Resonate is creating a Co-operative Privacy and Trust system for digital…

Artists in every field want to collaborate with each other and with their own community-supporting audiences. But trusted collaboration without face to face interaction is difficult. Many of us let the major corporate social platforms manage the…

ReeperBahn Festival Session

twitter.com

Resonate (resonatecoop)

We’re pleased to announce our Digital Lounge session @Reeperbahn_Fest on Friday with very special guests. Join us to talk ethical streaming, hear what artists have to say, and check out our new work on privacy. Thanks to @MusicTechDE @BerlinPartner @buerodoering for the invite.

09:41 - 14. Sept. 2020 11 4

Article in theNews.coop

Co-operative News – 17 Nov 20

Resonate to launch a Co-operative Privacy and Trust system - Co-operative News

Resonate is jointly owned and managed by artists, listeners and record labels.

Co-operatives UK support for Resonate

twitter.com

Co-operatives UK (CooperativesUK)

As @CommonsDCMS examines the impact of music streaming on the music industry, our new CEO @RoseMarley1 urges support for platform #coops solutions like @resonatecoop #UnFound http://ow.ly/EQG350CjMRX

06:53 - 13. Nov. 2020 23 11

Resonate’s UK Parliamentary Inquiry Campaign

twitter.com

NickM (mutineering)

THANK YOU! @resonatecoop has submitted its evidence to the @CommonsDCMS @UKParliament inquiry into the Economics of Music Streaming. Fantastic, impassioned response to our survey. #playfair #fixstreaming Response here: https://resonate.is/survey-music-streaming/

03:12 - 17. Nov. 2020 3

Major Artists / Influencers and Resonate

twitter.com

Resonate (resonatecoop)

The multi-talented @ZackFox recently took a moment to chat with artist and Resonate board member Z about his new single, his creative process and ambitions, and what exactly it is about Resonate that strikes his fancy. Check out the full interview below. https://resonate.is/dream-control-an-interview-with-zack-fox/#s

08:00 - 30. Okt. 2020 438 51

twitter.com

peter atomic (peteratomic)

Shout out to @mutineering for leading Resonate’s Community Credentials project. Here’s an older article sharing a high-level overview. Completely off my head and what’s possible and where we’re gonna take this! https://open.coop/2020/10/23/resonate-is-creating-a-co-operative-privacy-and-trust-system-for-digital-dignity-across-communities/

08:07 - 12. März 2021

  • Any further points you deem important:

Resonate is still a small, co-operative organisation with limited development resources. We need to grow our capability invest in internal work on foundation components such as our ID server and User and Membership API and Discourse integration in order for our Community Credentials implementation to work acceptably and at scale for our community. Please be assured of our commitment to make this a success. Sometimes, as a small organisation, it is difficult for us to meet ‘ceremony’ or milestone dates. Please keep in touch and continue to offer us the support and advice we value so much.

Best Regards,

Nick